1828. ] Meditations-on Mountains. 3 
soul! Do have a little feeling, for the sake of those whose hearts have 
not yet evaporated off by their ears, and left nothing but a hollow shell, 
in which idle and untouching sounds may rattle and reverberate, and 
mere din assume the name and usurp the throne of delight. 
_ The exhibition-shops, again?—Bah! An angel made out ofa spoiled 
child—a goddess out of a very vixen—and the effigies of the most vene- 
rably-wigged wisdom in the land, literally converted into a sign-board— 
speaking as plainly as if in the largest letters that ever lied— 
“« If you can afford the price, 
I paints your effigies so nice.” 
Even the senate-houses, how dull and disagreeable they are, after the 
; weather is such as to exact the forfeiture of the pound of flesh from every 
one who launches and loses his argosy on the sea of politics. 
4 By day or by night—in the world, or in your own chamber—all is 
pain and exhaustion ; and, unless it be a tombstone, which records the 
death of one just at your own age, there is not an object within the city 
__ upon which you can look with any satisfaction and hope. 
How different are your feelings in the turf castle! It is so simple, so 
rustic, that it harmonizes with the situation, and looks a thing of nature 
and growth as much as any of the rest. The sun had sunk behind the 
clump of trees, as you approached it ; but his last level beam found its 
: way to the single-glazed pane in the structure, and gave you a more 
glorious welcome than the most gaudy lamp at the portal of nobility. 
‘Then there was no surly and sotted porter to take your card and the 
; measure of your quality, and “ pass the word,’ as you passed mute 
through the gaping, or, if they liked not your grade or your bearing, 
the grinning and deriding menials. To a man whose mind will not bend 
to that degradation, by which the mansion of a man that is great only in 
his greatness must be approached, and sometimes is acquired, there is 
nothing more offensive than the gape of those beef-eating trappings that 
have “ two bodies apiece, and not one mind to the dozen ;” and, there- 
re, the absence of them makes you feel toward the cottage that glow 
the heart with which its master comes forth to meet you. The cup of 
ae is in his hand ; and when he and you have once put the same 
* chalice of the fragrant juniper to your lips, you are sworn brothers, 
_ and he a be your protector to the verge of life, even though his occu- 
pation should be rapine and plunder. Of that you have no reason now 
to be afraid in this country ; for, since the great men were pensioned into 
eace, and gave over worrying one another, vice has fled from the moun- 
; and Angus Gilchrist, into whose hand you are now returning 
up, has far more of the real saint in him than a hundred of the old 
ctures or modern moveables. 
nstinctively you sit down, side by side, on the settle of sods beside 
the little porch ; and, after your walk—even before it—the surface of 
moss and wild thyme feels softer and more grateful than the ottoman 
of down and velvet in the most luxurious saloon. Rely upon it, that, 
let man make for his enjoyment what he will, Nature has something 
better, if he would but find it out. 
Many are his questions—of you, of your residence, your journey, your 
business, the business of the world ; and you are apt to be astonished at 
the shrewdness and pertinence of his remarks, and the power that he has 
pCa 
